JP5529079B2 - Power consumption saving support device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a power consumption saving support device that supports a reduction in the total power consumption of a plurality of image forming apparatuses connected to a network.

  Conventionally, a reduction in the amount of electric power used has been requested from the viewpoint of protecting the natural environment. Recently, this requirement has become stronger due to the influence of a nuclear power generation accident.

  In Patent Document 1 below, when a print job is received while the image forming apparatus saves energy, the image forming apparatus is inquired of another image forming apparatus connected to the network to find a standby state, and the print job is transferred to the image forming apparatus. We are trying to save electricity.

JP 2011-051144 A

  However, since it is unclear how much power consumption of the plurality of image forming apparatuses has been reduced, it is not possible to raise awareness of achievement of the goal of power consumption reduction. Further, since performance and printing image quality differ for each type of image forming apparatus, it is not possible to select an appropriate image forming apparatus according to the application.

  By providing a watt-hour meter for each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses and calculating their total output, the total power consumption can be acquired, but the system becomes complicated and the expandability is poor.

  In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to clarify how much the power consumption of the entire plurality of image forming apparatuses is reduced without greatly restricting the degree of freedom of selection of image forming apparatuses to be printed. Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a power consumption saving support device having a simple configuration capable of reducing the power consumption while raising the awareness of achievement of the power consumption reduction target of all users of this system.

In the first aspect of the power consumption saving support device according to the present invention,
Request accepting means for receiving a recording request including the changed operation state and device ID from each of a plurality of image forming apparatuses via the network interface, and receiving a power consumption information request from the terminal device via the network interface When,
Power consumption information storage means for storing power consumption information in which the operation state and the power consumption are associated with each other, and the apparatus ID and the model of each image forming apparatus are associated with each type of the plurality of image forming apparatuses. ,
In response to the recording request, state change information recording means for recording state change information including the changed operation state, device ID, and reception time;
In response to the power consumption information request, the total power consumption of the plurality of image forming apparatuses from a predetermined time point to the current time is calculated based on the state change information, the power consumption information, and the current time. and, we have a and response means for returning the value,
The response means includes
For each recording request, refer to the recorded state change information, obtain the latest state of the same device ID as the device ID related to the request, obtain the time Δt from the reception time of this state to the current time, The power consumption W in this state is obtained by referring to the power consumption information, the product W · Δt is added to the integrated value obtained at the time of the previous recording request, and the integrated value is updated with the result,
At the time of requesting the power consumption information, the time Δtj from the most recently received state to the current time is obtained for each device IDj, the power consumption Wj in this state is obtained by referring to the power consumption information, and all device IDs are obtained. Find the sum of the products Wj · Δtj,
The total power consumption of the plurality of image forming apparatuses from the predetermined time point to the current time point is obtained by adding the total sum to the integrated value .

In a second aspect of the power consumption saving support device according to the present invention, in the first aspect, further comprising target value storage means in which a total power consumption target value for a predetermined period from the predetermined time point is stored,
The response means is configured to determine the current target value of the total power consumption based on the total power consumption target value, the predetermined period, the period from the predetermined time to the current time, and the total power consumption. The data regarding the deviation from is calculated and the data is also returned.

  In a third aspect of the power consumption saving support device according to the present invention, in the first or second aspect, the response means is an image in a currently ready state among the plurality of image forming devices based on the recorded operation state. The device ID of the forming device is also returned.

  In a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the third aspect, the response means refers to the power consumption information and is proportional to the power consumption per page at the time of printing of the image forming apparatus corresponding to the returned apparatus ID. The obtained values are acquired, and records including the device ID and the device performance of the device ID are sorted and returned in the order of the proportional values.

In a fifth aspect of the power consumption saving support apparatus according to the present invention, in the fourth aspect, the response means is configured to compare the average of the proportional values with respect to the average value of the proportional values for the plurality of image forming apparatuses. Find the percentage of deviation from the value,
The record contains the percentage,
The data relating to the deviation of the total power consumption from the current target value is the ratio of the deviation from the target value to the current target value.

In the sixth aspect of the power consumption saving support device according to the present invention,
Request accepting means for receiving a recording request including the changed operation state and device ID from each of a plurality of image forming apparatuses via the network interface, and receiving a power consumption information request from the terminal device via the network interface When,
Power consumption information storage means for storing power consumption information in which the operation state and the power consumption are associated with each other, and the apparatus ID and the model of each image forming apparatus are associated with each type of the plurality of image forming apparatuses. ,
In response to the recording request, state change information recording means for recording state change information including the changed operation state, device ID, and reception time;
In response to the power consumption information request, the total power consumption of the plurality of image forming apparatuses from a predetermined time point to the current time is calculated based on the state change information, the power consumption information, and the current time. And
A response means for returning the value;
Have
The response means also returns a device ID of an image forming device currently in a ready state among the plurality of image forming devices based on the recorded operation state, refers to the power consumption information, and returns the device ID A value proportional to the power consumption per page at the time of printing of the image forming apparatus corresponding to the ID is acquired, and the records including the apparatus ID and the apparatus performance of the apparatus ID are sorted in the order of the proportional values. Reply, and determine the ratio of the deviation of each proportional value from the average value to the average value of the proportional values for the plurality of image forming apparatuses,
The record contains the percentage,
The data relating to the deviation of the total power consumption from the current target value is the ratio of the deviation from the target value to the current target value.

  According to the configuration of the first aspect, the selection of the image forming apparatus is not forced, so that the degree of freedom of selection of the image forming apparatus to be printed is not greatly limited, and each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses has a watt-hour meter. The total power amount of these image forming apparatuses can be obtained with a relatively simple configuration without further comprising the terminal device, and the terminal device can acquire the total power amount by requesting the power consumption amount information for each printing. Therefore, it becomes clear how much the power consumption is reduced, and it is possible to reduce the power consumption while raising the awareness of achievement of the power consumption reduction target of the entire user of this system. Play.

  According to the configuration of the second aspect, since the terminal device can also receive data relating to the deviation of the total power consumption from the current target value, it becomes clearer how much the power is saved, There exists an effect that the said effect is heightened.

  According to the configuration of the third aspect, the device ID of the image forming device that is currently ready among the plurality of image forming devices is also returned to the terminal device, and the selection is not limited to a specific image forming device. .

  According to the configuration of the fourth aspect, for an image forming apparatus that is currently ready, a record that includes a value proportional to power consumption per page at the time of printing, the apparatus ID, and the performance of the apparatus of the apparatus ID, Since the terminal device can receive the data sorted in the order of values proportional to the power consumption per page at the time of printing, the image forming apparatus can be selected more appropriately.

  According to the configuration of the fifth aspect, it is easy to understand whether or not the total power consumption can be made equal to or less than the target value by comparing the ratios of both deviations. There is an effect that it will be.

  According to the configuration of the sixth aspect, since the calculation of the total power amount at the time of requesting the power consumption information is simplified by simple power amount integration for each recording request, there is an effect that a high-speed response is possible.

  Other objects, characteristic configurations and effects of the present invention will become apparent from the following description read in connection with the appended claims and the drawings.

1 is a schematic hardware configuration diagram of an image forming system to which the present invention is applied. It is a schematic block diagram which shows the hardware constitutions of the power consumption amount saving assistance apparatus in FIG. (A) is a schematic flowchart showing processing of a Web service requester that is started in response to the occurrence of an operation state change event in the image forming apparatus, and (B) is started when printing is selected by an application of a personal computer. It is a schematic flowchart which shows the process of the Web service requester to be performed. It is a figure which shows the display screen in step S3 of FIG. 3 (B). It is a general | schematic functional block diagram of the Web service provider with which the power consumption saving support apparatus was equipped. It is a flowchart which shows the process sequence of the structure of FIG. FIG. 6 is a data structure diagram of the state change information log in FIG. 5. (A) And (B) is a data structure figure of the 1st power consumption information table and the 2nd power consumption information table which were stored in the power consumption information storage part in FIG. 5, respectively. It is explanatory drawing of the process in the power consumption amount integration part in FIG.

  FIG. 1 is a schematic hardware configuration diagram of an image forming system to which the present invention is applied.

  In this system, image forming apparatuses 10 to 1N, a power consumption saving support apparatus 20, and personal computers (PCs) 30 to 3M are coupled by a network 40.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of the power consumption saving support device 20.

  The device 20 is a normal computer system, and a CPU 21 is coupled to a PROM 23, a DRAM 24, a network interface 25, a hard disk drive 26, a display device 27, and an input device 28 via an interface 22. In FIG. 2, a plurality of types of interfaces are represented by one block 22 for simplification.

  The PROM 23 is a flash memory, for example, and stores a BIOS. The DRAM 24 is used as a main storage device. The hard disk drive 26 stores an OS (Operating System) and a Web service provider. Network interface 25 is coupled to network PC 30. The input device 28 includes, for example, a keyboard and a pointing device.

  Returning to FIG. 1, each of the image forming apparatuses 10 to 1N and the PCs 30 to 3M includes a Web service requester. The Web service requester provided in each of the image forming apparatuses 10 to 1N responds to the occurrence of an event of its own operation state change, and supports the state after this change as shown in FIG. A recording request is made to the apparatus 20 (S0).

  Here, the operation state relates to power consumption, and includes, for example, sleep (SLEEP), ready (READY), warm-up (WARMUP), and run (RUN) states. In the case of printing, the run state is a state at the time of printing.

  Returning to FIG. 1, when a document is created by an application program for each of the PCs 30 to 3M and printing is selected, the Web service requester is activated with a normally used printer driver selected, and FIG. ) Is started. This processing may be executed by hooking the activation of the printer driver.

  (S1) Request power consumption target achievement support information to the power consumption reduction support device 20.

  (S2, S3) When this information is received from the device 20, the content is displayed on the screen of the display device 27. FIG. 4 shows this display screen.

  FIG. 5 is a schematic functional block diagram of the Web service provider provided in the power consumption saving support device 20.

  The request receiving unit 50 is resident in the DRAM 24, receives a web service request via the network 40, and passes this request to the processing distribution unit 51. Thereby, the process shown in FIG. 6 is started. FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the configuration of FIG.

  (S10) If it is a state change recording request, the process proceeds to step S11 (calls the state change information recording unit 52), and if it is a request for power consumption target achievement support information, the process proceeds to step S20 (calls the response information generating unit 60). ).

  (S11) The state change information recording unit 52 increments the counter No indicating the recording order by 1, reads the current time t from the time measuring unit 53, these values, the device ID received from the processing distribution unit 51, and the operation The state is recorded in row No = Noi of the state change information log 54. FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of the state change information log 54 and Noi = 002683.

  (S12) The state change information recording unit 52 calls the power consumption amount integrating unit 55 using the row Noi as an argument.

  Here, the power consumption information storage unit 56 stores a first power consumption information table 561 as shown in FIG. 8A and a second power consumption information table 562 as shown in FIG. ing.

  The power consumption integrating unit 55 acquires the device ID from the row Noi on the state change information log 54, and in the “current state” and “date / time” columns of this device ID row in the first power consumption information table 561, The corresponding value of the row Noi of the state change information log 54 is transcribed, and the value of the “type” column of this row on the first power consumption information table 561 is read, and the second power consumption information table 562 is read using this as a key. Search and read the hit line.

  Next, the power consumption integrating unit 55 finds the most recent row having the same device ID as the device ID of the row Noi on the state change information log 54, acquires the state STATE of this row, and sets the date / time interval Δt between both rows. Then, the electric power W of this state STATE (the value of the column of the state STATE of the hit row) is multiplied by the interval Δt to obtain the electric energy ΔWH, the value SUM of the state change integrated value storage unit 57 is read, and SUM is Update with the value of SUM + ΔWH.

  Thereby, the process for the state change recording request is completed. By this process, the total power consumption until the most recent state change of each image forming apparatus 10 (time t1 to t8 in FIG. 9), that is, the total power consumption in the bar period shown in FIG. 9 is obtained.

  (S20) The response information generation unit 60 calls the power consumption amount integration unit 55. The accumulating unit 55 reads the current time t from the time measuring unit 53, obtains a difference Δtj between the current time t and the value tj of the date / time column of the table 561 for each row j of the first power consumption information table 561, and , The current state (STATEj) of the row j and the column value of the type are acquired, the column value (power consumption) Wj of the state STATEj on the second power consumption information table 562 that matches this type is acquired, and the power consumption amount Wj · Δtj is obtained. By calculating the sum ΔWH of the power consumption amounts Wj · Δtj of each device IDj and adding the value SUM of the state change integrated value storage unit 57 to this, the current time t from the beginning of the management period, for example, the beginning of this month. The total power consumption WH of the image forming apparatuses 10 to 1 </ b> N is obtained and returned to the response information generation unit 60.

  (S21) The response information generation unit 60 calls the current target value / deviation calculation unit 61 using this value as an argument. The current target value / deviation calculation unit 61 reads the target value of the total power consumption of the image forming apparatuses 10 to 1N in the management period (this month) from the target value storage unit 62, and shows the current target shown in the upper right part of FIG. Calculate values and deviations.

  For example, the current target value is June 17, 2011, the target value for this month is 600 KWH, the current business day for this month is PROM 23 days, the current business day for this month is 13 days, When the ratio of the time from the start of business to the current time t is 0.4, 600 * 12.4 / 23WH = 323.5WH. The deviation is a deviation of the current total power consumption value from the current target value. The current target value / deviation calculation unit 61 also obtains a percentage of deviation from the current target value, and returns these obtained values to the response information generation unit 60.

  (S22) The response information generation unit 60 further refers to the first power consumption information table 561 and reads the device ID of the row in which the current state is the ready state.

  (S23) For each of the read device IDk, the power consumption Wk and the printing speed PPMk at the time of RUN are read from the second power consumption information table 562. A value Wk / PPMk proportional to the power consumption per page is obtained, the device IDs are sorted in ascending order of these values, and the recommended order in terms of power consumption of the image forming apparatus 10 in the current ready state as shown in the lower part of FIG. Device information is generated. This information includes, for each device IDk, the device type, the power consumption value in the RUN state, the printing speed, the power saving percentage, the device performance such as whether color printing is possible and the resolution. ing. The apparatus performance is acquired from the performance storage unit 63 for the corresponding type.

  (S24) The response information generation unit 60 returns the set of data obtained in steps S20 to S23 to the request source through the request reception unit 50 as response information (power consumption saving support information).

  The request source displays a screen as shown in FIG. 9 based on the received information.

  Here, the power saving percentage is a percentage of deviation of the value of Wk / PPMk of each apparatus k from the average value of W / PPM for the image forming apparatuses 10 to 1N.

  By comparing this percentage with the percentage of the deviation of the current total power consumption value from the current target value, the device to be printed can be selected, so that the total power consumption is less than the target value. It is easy to understand whether or not it is possible to do so, and as a result, the effort is made more.

  When the user selects a row in the lower table of FIG. 4 and presses the OK button, the printer driver is switched to the “type” of this row.

  In the above, preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described. However, the present invention includes various modifications, and other configurations that realize the functions of the respective components described in the above embodiments are used. However, other configurations that would be conceived by those skilled in the art from these configurations or functions are also included in the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Image forming apparatus 20 Power consumption saving support apparatus 21 CPU
22 Interface 23 PROM
24 DRAM
25 Network interface 26 Hard disk drive 27 Display device 28 Input device 30 PC
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 40 Network 50 Request reception part 51 Process distribution part 52 State change information recording part 53 Time measuring part 54 State change information log 55 Power consumption amount integration part 56 Power consumption information storage part 561 1st power consumption information table 562 2nd power consumption information Table 57 Integrated value storage unit for each state change 60 Response information generation unit 61 Current target value / deviation calculation unit 62 Target value storage unit 63 Performance storage unit

Claims (6)

Request accepting means for receiving a recording request including the changed operation state and device ID from each of a plurality of image forming apparatuses via the network interface, and receiving a power consumption information request from the terminal device via the network interface When,
Power consumption information storage means for storing power consumption information in which the operation state and the power consumption are associated with each other, and the apparatus ID and the model of each image forming apparatus are associated with each type of the plurality of image forming apparatuses. ,
In response to the recording request, state change information recording means for recording state change information including the changed operation state, device ID, and reception time;
In response to the power consumption information request, the total power consumption of the plurality of image forming apparatuses from a predetermined time point to the current time is calculated based on the state change information, the power consumption information, and the current time. And
A response means for returning the value;
I have a,
The response means includes
For each recording request, refer to the recorded state change information, obtain the latest state of the same device ID as the device ID related to the request, obtain the time Δt from the reception time of this state to the current time, The power consumption W in this state is obtained by referring to the power consumption information, the product W · Δt is added to the integrated value obtained at the time of the previous recording request, and the integrated value is updated with the result,
At the time of requesting the power consumption information, the time Δtj from the most recently received state to the current time is obtained for each device IDj, the power consumption Wj in this state is obtained by referring to the power consumption information, and all device IDs are obtained. Find the sum of the products Wj · Δtj,
The total power consumption of the plurality of image forming apparatuses from the predetermined time to the current time is obtained by adding the sum to the integrated value.
A power consumption saving support device characterized by that. A target value storing means for storing a total power consumption target value for a predetermined period from the predetermined time point;
The response means is configured to determine the current target value of the total power consumption based on the total power consumption target value, the predetermined period, the period from the predetermined time to the current time, and the total power consumption. Calculate data on deviations from and return the data,
The power consumption saving support device according to claim 1.   3. The consumption according to claim 1, wherein the response unit also returns an apparatus ID of an image forming apparatus that is currently in a ready state among the plurality of image forming apparatuses based on the recorded operation state. Electricity saving support device.   The response means refers to the power consumption information, obtains a value proportional to the power consumption per page at the time of printing of the image forming apparatus corresponding to the returned apparatus ID, and the apparatus ID and the apparatus ID 4. The power consumption saving support device according to claim 3, wherein records including the performance of the device are sorted and returned in the order of the proportional values. The response means obtains a ratio of a deviation of each proportional value from the average value to an average value of the proportional values for the plurality of image forming apparatuses,
The record contains the percentage,
The data regarding the deviation from the current target value of the total power consumption is the ratio of the deviation from the target value to the current target value.
The power consumption saving support device according to claim 4.   Request accepting means for receiving a recording request including the changed operation state and device ID from each of a plurality of image forming apparatuses via the network interface, and receiving a power consumption information request from the terminal device via the network interface When,
  Power consumption information storage means for storing power consumption information in which the operation state and the power consumption are associated with each other, and the apparatus ID and the model of each image forming apparatus are associated with each type of the plurality of image forming apparatuses. ,
  In response to the recording request, state change information recording means for recording state change information including the changed operation state, device ID, and reception time;
  In response to the power consumption information request, the total power consumption of the plurality of image forming apparatuses from a predetermined time point to the current time is calculated based on the state change information, the power consumption information, and the current time. And
A response means for returning the value;
  Have
  The response means also returns a device ID of an image forming device currently in a ready state among the plurality of image forming devices based on the recorded operation state, refers to the power consumption information, and returns the device ID A value proportional to the power consumption per page at the time of printing of the image forming apparatus corresponding to the ID is acquired, and the records including the apparatus ID and the apparatus performance of the apparatus ID are sorted in the order of the proportional values. Reply, and determine the ratio of the deviation of each proportional value from the average value to the average value of the proportional values for the plurality of image forming apparatuses,
  The record contains the percentage,
  The data regarding the deviation from the current target value of the total power consumption is the ratio of the deviation from the target value to the current target value.
  A power consumption saving support device characterized by that.

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